


of a living thing; redux

by orphan_account



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Heart!Alexi, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:28:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24238060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Emily acquires a Heart, and things are not what they should be.
Relationships: Emily Kaldwin/Alexi Mayhew
Comments: 10
Kudos: 31





	of a living thing; redux

They’re sitting side by side on a rooftop, feet dangling over the edge into open air and hands pressed into the gravel behind them. Emily’s neck aches from craning up to watch the dusky sky turning purple-blue, and her arm is entangled at an awkward angle with Alexi’s. She has no desire to move. She feels so inexplicably content, almost _joyous,_ but it’s a fuller feeling than joy—it’s a lasting one, it’s the warmth of a spring breeze rather than that of a raging bonfire. Her throat is a little tight, and there are tears stinging just behind her eyes. Not stinging harshly enough that she’ll cry. There is nothing harsh about her right now, not in this moment.

“I’m think I’m really in love with you,” she tells Alexi, and something hums in the depths of her throat. Something like laughter, but it’s not humor that coaxes the sound from her. She isn’t quite smiling, but her lips are parted, and she can feel them curved upward at the edges. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Alexi.”

She doesn’t find herself breathless with anticipation or nervousness, waiting for a reply. The air swirling in her lungs feels wonderful and as fresh as the waves far below.

Alexi smiles at her. It makes the laughter lines around her mouth crinkle, and her eyes seem so brilliantly bright; all of her is bright and shining. Her freckles connect like the constellations are written on her skin. Her eyes are gray and clear like Dunwall is at dawn, and it should be bloody depressing but Emily’s grown up with this city too interwoven into her bones for the color gray to make her feel anything but a sense of _home._

Alexi presses closer, resting her head on Emily’s shoulder. She doesn’t respond. Doesn’t say “I’m in love with you, too,” or “I don’t feel the same.” She doesn’t need to say anything; she looks happy, and that’s enough for Emily.

There is only one problem:

It is very lovely to sit here with Alexi, and Emily does not ever want this to end. That is not the problem. The problem is that it _must_ end, because it is only a dream.

Emily greets the waking world from a small cot aboard the _Dreadful Wale,_ shivering and miserable, and she is not even in Dunwall any longer. The boat is rocking violently beneath her unsteady feet and she can hear the rain pouring down from the sky like it was sent by the Outsider himself, and the air smells like the salt of the sea and stale bread loaves and ripening plantains and apples. So many scents, but none of them are thick like the whale-oil derivative Alexi uses to polish her weapons, or tingly like whiffs of Alexi’s favorite perfume, or sour like their breath in the mornings, when they’re sleepy and cranky and they stay in bed and kiss for ages, even though it tastes disgusting.

They don’t do that anymore, because Emily is a fugitive, and Alexi is dead. Emily stumbles to the sink and brushes her teeth until she only tastes sharp Tyvian mint and she carefully does not think about what it felt like to be touched for the first time in too many days. She does not think about that or anything related to it as she dresses, grabs her blade and spyglass, and goes to find her apparent traveling companion.

Meagan is in the kitchen, cooking, for all that it’s the middle of the night. She hands over a bottle of pear soda that Emily wishes was something stronger, and a plate with some sort of traditional Serkonan meal that Corvo would have loved but Emily has no taste for.

She takes both and does not complain. “How far are we from Karnaca?”

“We’ll not get there sooner for your having asked me a dozen times a day, Your Grace,” Meagan says dryly, but relents a moment later. “Six or eight hours, I expect. Sometime before noon.”

The correct title is _Your Imperial Majesty,_ but it would be petty to correct her. “Thank you. I… don’t mean to be impatient.”

“It’s fine,” Meagan says.

She takes her own plate up top, leaving Emily in the near-darkness and complete silence but for raindrops pounding on the deck above. There was never silence back in Dunwall. Not in Dunwall Tower, anyway. The closest to peace that Emily ever found was alone in her bedchambers with Alexi, or traversing the rooftops with her father. She does not think this ship suits her; she’ll be glad to reach Karnaca for many reasons, but being in the comforting bustle of a city is near the top of the list.

The rest of the list… Void. She doesn’t even want to think about any of it, as much as she needs to. She wishes Corvo were here. She could use some of his advice right now, as exasperating as it usually is. His presence alone would be reassuring.

She returns to her room, for the time being, and tries to get some more sleep. There’s nothing else to do on this boat.

She expects to dream of Alexi again, and she aches at the thought, somewhere between hoping she will and hoping she won’t. She does dream, she thinks. It’s something like a dream. But it’s not of Alexi, or of Dunwall. The place she finds herself in is decidedly darker. It feels like there is something watching her; she cannot help but shiver, unnerved.

She moves forward, and that is when he comes to her. The Outsider.

“Empress Emily Kaldwin,” he says, almost mockingly, and the rest of his words are a blur to her. She takes his Mark and seeks out a light, somewhere distant in the Void. A human heart waits for her upon a stone shrine.

She picks it up, hands trembling.

It beats still, on its own; somehow, somehow not quite dead. There is blood running through its arteries, pumping and pumping and dripping red through Emily’s fingertips, and the workmanship is not that of Piero Joplin. Neither is it Jessamine Kaldwin whose chest this Heart was cut from.

No. No, it _can’t_ be. Even the Outsider cannot be this cruel. Emily chokes on a sob as a terrible, knowing feeling begins to rise in her gut.

 _Don’t cry,_ it whispers. _Don’t cry, Lady Emily, my Emily, my love. I won’t leave you again._

**Author's Note:**

> this popped into my head and I couldn't get rid of it.


End file.
